For organisations

Training and talks for organisations

[COPY EDIT NEEDED JO] I work with organisations and professionals who support children, young people, and families — offering practical tools, deep knowledge, and warm support to strengthen wellbeing and resilience in your communities.

My talks and training are designed for adults who work closely with children and young people, including:

  • Foster carers and social workers supporting children through complex challenges

  • Youth workers, therapists, and counsellors helping young people build resilience and confidence

  • Charities, community groups, and parent networks offering essential support to families

I also work with teams who work in other fields and who want to improve their communication skills, customer service and knowledge of the issues their clients/customers face.

What you can expect

All of my trainings are designed to help you meet this moment with real, compassionate support for the challenges you face in your work.

Each course weaves together up-to-date science with a heartfelt understanding of the emotional labour involved in caring for children and young people, especially in a world in crisis.

My training is underpinned by these approaches

  • attachment and trauma theory

  • child development and adolescent brain research

  • mindfulness and emotional regulation

  • polyvagal theory and interpersonal neurobiology

  • systems thinking, deep ecology, and climate psychology

My training courses are:

  • Rooted in the latest neurobiological research

  • Grounded in real-world experience with families and professionals

  • Delivered with empathy, warmth, and down-to-earth clarity

  • Always a mix of theory, reflective practice, and experiential learning

Who these trainings are for

My talks and training courses are designed for professionals and adults who work closely with children and young people. Whether you’re a foster carer, teacher, youth worker, therapist, social worker, or part of any organisation supporting young people or families, these sessions will equip you with the knowledge and practical tools to build resilience and wellbeing in the children and young people you care for.

I understand the complexity and emotional challenges of this work and create learning spaces that are compassionate, inclusive, and grounded in real-world experience.

In particular I work with people who recognise that current systems are not working in the interests of children and young people, and who understand that real change is needed to better support families and future generations.

Reflections from previous participants

  • “I recently had the privilege of attending training by Jo McAndrews around managing secondary trauma, and I have to say it was THE most inspirational, insightful and useful training I have ever done; plus it was marvellously delivered.”

    Jane E, foster carer

How I work

Initially I would love to talk with you about your training needs and ideas and see how I can best support you. Together we will agree a plan for a training programme that will meet your teams learning needs.

I am known for my warmth and welcoming style. I meet every group where they are whatever their level of understanding or experience. My sessions create space for reflection, skill-building, and connection.

Courses can be delivered as:

  • standalone workshops

  • multi-week programmes with wraparound support

  • bespoke sessions shaped to your team or organisational needs

Core training courses

These four courses address the most urgent and widespread needs I see in today’s caring professions:

  • Understanding and working with trauma: supporting young people through the pandemic and beyond

  • Understanding and managing secondary trauma: the everyday impact of supporting others’ distress

  • Skills for challenging conversations: powerful communication skills for meeting conflict with resilience

  • Working with young people and climate emotions: skilful and knowledgeable mental health support in challenging times

These can be booked as standalone sessions or built into a programme that includes integrated reflective practice sessions to embed learning and develop skills.

Support and Supervision

I work with individuals and groups who support others:

  • to develop learning, skills and confidence

  • to improve communication and management style.

  • to integrate learning from training programmes

  • to grow a culture of reflective practice

[NOTE: Add headings for specific orgs and related offerings attached, rather than just ‘get in touch’]

Get in touch

All available topics

I also offer training on a wide range of additional topics. Please use the arrows to expand each section and read the description. I would be delighted to talk with you about adapting any of these courses to meet your team’s needs.

  • Responding to challenging behaviour is usually the top training need identified by people who work with children and with traumatised adults. The strategies and techniques that we are used to simply don’t work in the long term. Based on well established research about the roots and reasons for behaviour, this course offers an attachment aware and trauma informed approach. Practical and effective, this will transform your confidence and skill in responding to a wide range of behaviour and creating cultures of thriving.

  • When someone dies life turns upside down for those most closely involved. This course gets into the nitty gritty of how to offer support that is sensitive and skilled. We include current theories of grief, talking about death and practical communication tools to offer robust interventions for bereaved families. This course is for anyone who works with children and would like to feel more confident in meeting their support needs around a bereavement.

  • Life is very challenging for looked after young people and the adults who care for them. Early trauma and a world that doesn’t understand makes it hard to meet their needs. This course for foster carers, social workers and educators offers up to date attachment and trauma informed theory and practice to provide the best chance for thriving for everyone in the system.

  • Children in care have been through numerous and unimaginable losses. Of course this has an impact on their ability to feel safe in a placement, school or adoptive family. There is a strong need for informed support from adults who feel confident in understanding and responding to loss and bereavement. This course is underpinned by bereavement and neurobiology theory and offers practical robust knowledge and skills.

  • It’s not just about recycling and planting trees. Schools are facing the challenge of supporting and educating their students in the face of a very uncertain and frightening future. This course is about how to take a whole school approach to meet the educational and emotional needs of staff and students while taking practical action to build resilience in the whole school community.

  • Children and young people are living with huge questions and fears. Often they feel alone with them and need adults to tell them the truth. How do we know what to say and how to say it on the huge and challenging subject of climate change? This course offers a framework for conversations that is takes care of the emotional needs as well as the need for knowledge of both child and parent.

  • A course for environmental and social action groups who are seeking to involve young people in their work. We will look at how to avoid inadvertently adding stress, trauma and burden to young people and work in ways that support healthy and sustainable engagement that empowers and inspires.

  • Anxiety about the impact of climate change is affecting more and more children and young people. This course explores what ecoanxiety or climate distress, is, what it looks like in your child, and offers a six step framework for adults who are stepping up to the challenge of standing alongside their children in the face of an uncertain and frightening present and future.

  • Understand the nature of resilience, what we as humans need to survive and thrive and the essential skills for building connection in a disconnected world. This course offers information, support and practical tools to help you get a handle on what is going on and what is needed to grow strength and flexibility within your family, team or organisation.

  • This course is for the financial or business sector. Confident communication skills are needed when dealing with the next of kin of a customer who has died. It can be difficult to know what language to use and how to talk with someone about a death. The way a business deals with a bereaved customer makes a huge difference to staff wellbeing and their customer service reputation as well as significantly easing the grief journey of the customer. This course builds both confidence and competence in team members.

  • Even after several years, it is hard to begin to understand the impact that the global pandemic has had on all of us. Social isolation, fear and uncertainty has left communities, schools and organisations reeling. This course explores how we can understand and mitigate the complex impacts and consequences of the pandemic and its lockdowns. It offers insights and practical strategies to support recovery, cohesion, and to grow resilience for the future.

  • We are born with billions of brain cells and a strong evolved knowledge of what we need to grow strong and resilient. Baby brains are miraculous and also vulnerable in a culture that has largely forgotten how to care for babies and their parents. Neurobiology research has shown us exactly how vital the first few years are to lifelong healthy functioning. This course is for expectant or new parents and also for any professionals working with them. It offers information and practical strategies for building the foundations of a healthy life.

  • Huge upheaval happens to the brain at adolescence. These changes have evolved to support human evolution but are badly misunderstood in our culture now. Adults who live and work with teenagers need some good information and support to help us guide our growing children through a time of huge opportunity and potential. Drawing on current research from attachment and neurobiology, this course offers information and reflection with down to earth ideas and practical strategies to make adolescence a positive time for teens, their families and communities.

  • Working with children and adults who are traumatised has an impact that often goes unacknowledged. Trauma is catching and it affects whole networks. Research has shown that it is an occupational hazard to experience the painful symptoms of trauma in the caring professions. This course gives you the theory and practices to understand and respond to secondary trauma in order to boost health and resilience.

  • Current research shows that trauma is an invisible pandemic. It affects our families, schools and communities. When we understand how trauma is caused and how it impacts us we can find effective ways to respond. This course is offered bespoke for any team or community wanting to learn and adopt a practical and empowering trauma informed approach.

  • Everything goes more smoothly when people know how to talk to each other. This course offers strong, effective tools and practical skills for communicating confidently with clients, family members, colleagues and others. Learn how to navigate difficult and sensitive conversations and deal with conflict. This course can be adapted for any situation where good, solid communication skills and practice are needed.